Religion and Education

Islam and its institutions help to integrate Comoran society and
provide an identification with a world beyond the islands' shores. As
Sunni Muslims, the people follow religious observances conscientiously
and strictly adhere to religious orthodoxy. During the period of
colonization, the French did not attempt to supplant Islamic customs and
practices and were careful to respect the precedents of Islamic law as
interpreted by the Shafii school (one of the four major legal schools in
Sunni Islam, named after Muhammad ibn Idris ash Shafii, it stresses
reasoning by analogy). Hundreds of mosques dot the islands.

Practically all children attend Quranic school for two or three
years, starting around age five; there they learn the rudiments of the
Islamic faith and some classical Arabic. When rural children attend
these schools, they sometimes move away from home and help the teacher
work his land.

France established a system of primary and secondary schools based on
the French model, which remains largely in place. Comoran law requires
all children to complete eight years of schooling between the ages of
seven and fifteen. The system provides six years of primary education
for students ages six to twelve, followed by seven years of secondary
school. In recent years, enrollment has expanded greatly, particularly
at the primary level. About 20,750 pupils, or roughly 75 percent of
primary-school-age children were enrolled in 1993, up from about 46
percent in the late 1970s. About 17 percent of the secondaryschool -age
population was enrolled, up from an estimated 7 percent fifteen to
twenty years earlier. Teacher-student ratios also improved, from 47:1 to
36:1 in the primary schools and from 26:1 to 25:1 in secondary schools.
The increased attendance was all the more significant given the
population's high percentage of school-age children. Improvement in
educational facilities was funded in 1993 by loans from the Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the African Development
Bank. Despite the spread of education, adult literacy in 1993 has been
estimated at no better than 50 percent.

Comoros has no university but post-secondary education, which in 1993
involved 400 students, is available in the form of teacher training,
agricultural education training, health sciences, and business. Those
desiring higher education must study abroad; a "brain drain"
has resulted because few university graduates are willing to return to
the islands. Teacher training and other specialized courses are
available at the M'Vouni School for Higher Education, in operation since
1981 at a site near Moroni. Few Comoran teachers study overseas, but the
republic often cannot give its teachers all the training they need. Some
international aid has been provided, however, to further teacher
training in the islands themselves. For example, in 1987 the IDA
extended credits worth US$7.9 million to train 3,000 primary and 350
secondary school teachers. In 1986 the government began opening
technology training centers offering a three-year diploma program at the
upper secondary level. The Ministry of National Education and
Professional Training is responsible for education policy.

As elsewhere in Comoran society, political instability has taken a
toll on the education system. Routinely announced reductions in force
among the civil service, often made in response to international
pressure for fiscal reform, sometimes result in teacher strikes. When
civil service cutbacks result in canceled classes or examinations,
students have at times taken to the streets in protest. Students have
also protested, even violently, against government underfunding or
general mismanagement of the schools--the World Bank stated in 1994 that
the quality of education resulted in high rates of repetition and
dropouts such that the average student needed fourteen years to complete
the six-year primary cycle.